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Let’s jump and eat cake for year 8

After seven years of gardenwatching and blogging, 2014 promises to be an interesting year of discovery for garden and blog visitors. I’m hoping for frogs, toads and dragonflies! Yay… my pond liner finally made its way from under the sofa indoors to outside in its permanent new home. Let the gardenwatching take a new phase for year 8 😉

I’ll keep the full pond reveal until its complete, unfortunately frost is hampering the last finishing touches – you got a sneak preview on wordless Wednesday last week 😉

Congratulations and a huge thank-you to all blog visitors who have read, followed and commented on shirls gardenwatch for another year. My blog just wouldn’t be the same without you all. My first post in November 2006 seems a long way away now. Here’s to another year!

This post was published by Shirley for shirls gardenwatch in November 2013.

14 thoughts on “Let’s jump and eat cake for year 8

  1. Happy Blog Birthday. I thoroughly enjoy reading your blog. Seeing what is going on in your garden. I especially like to see photos of your jaunts around the country and further afield. Here is to another year… Looking forward to seeing the completed pond and the critters that visit.

  2. Congratulations on seven years of interesting and informative blogging Shirl. Here's to seven more with lots of activity in and around your new pond.

  3. Oh many, many congratulations Shirl on your blog's seventh birthday. Long may it bloom and flourish! Look forward to the pond reveal when it is a tad warmer.

  4. Hello everyone, thanks for your comments and good wishes 

    Lisa, you have commented on my blog for a very long time and I always smile when your name pops up. You’ve said many times that you enjoy seeing what goes on in my garden but I’m delighted you (sitting in Indiana, USA) enjoy jaunts around too. Hopefully 2014 will be a year that will be back to garden visiting. I’m really looking forward to seeing what happens by my pond too. I’m hoping to have a camera there to catch what happens which should be fun to share 😀

    John, thank-you, I hope I can keep my posts interesting for a bit longer. Seven more years? Mm… I only intended this blog to last a few months… I had no intention of become a blogger either! It’s been great meeting like minded peeps. I’ve enjoyed our exchanges on the nestcams and look forward to pond chat in 2014 although I suspect it will be 2015 before I see a frog population jumping around my garden 😉

    Mike, thank-you and hello again! I’ll have to pop over and see your latest great bird images 😀

    Anna, thank-you! I’d love lots of blooms and a flourishing pond for the future and more time to blog about it. I’d like to visit all my blogging friends like yourself more often too. Ah… I’m a tad disappointed that I couldn’t do the whole pond reveal. I do need it to warm up for a few days so I can work in the water – it has a good covering of ice just now. I’ll be patient 🙂

  5. Oh Sue… do you think so? I doubted it, thinking it was too late now. The problem is that I've covered the pond with a net for now to stop/reduce leaves going in. I know what happens if I leave them in my small pond – that oily surface isn't pretty but its the water quality I'm concerned about at this early stage. Perhaps the ice will melt later today and I can finish things off which will include stone hiding places for frogs 🙂 Many thanks for all your comments here over the years 😀

  6. Happy Birthday Blog. I love visiting your Blog Shirley. We lived high up in the hills behind Crieff for 7 years. I still pine to be back there and miss the wildlife we saw in Perthshire. Take care now. Marion x

  7. Our frogs move in to lay spawn at the beginning of April. If you don't get any naturally maybe you can obtain some spawn from elsewhere and then in theory whatever hatches and matures should come back next year.

  8. You have a brilliant blog Shirl and I love it. I'm hoping to sit down over Christmas, with a glass of wine and a look back at some of your previous posts.

  9. Happy Blogaversary! So glad to see you're still here and have even more plans afoot to improve your garden for wildlife. 2014 looks like it will be even more inspirational from your part of the blogosphere 😀

  10. Comment via email from Christina My Hesperides Garden who said…

    Hi Shirl

    I’d just like to say how much pleasure your blog brings to me and to my MIL (who I set up to receive your posts). Happy Blog Birthday! I’ve been having problems posting comments for some time now. Blogger always throws up problems as I use WordPress and because I started with another blog and that is my ‘official name’ it doesn’t always accept who I am. I’ll comment via email from now on; you are welcome to post my comments or just read them. I look forward to some great posts about your pond and all the birds that visit your garden.

    Very best wishes
    Christina, My Hesperides Garden

  11. Hello everyone, thanks for all your kind comments and good wishes 🙂 Gosh this past week has flown by! Sorry I’ve been so slow with replies.

    L, thank-you! Sometimes you can wonder if anyone is still reading with so many great blogs and bloggers around 🙂

    Marrion, thank-you! What fun to hear you have lived up this way. Sorry, to hear you are missing the area. I’ll bear that in mind and try and a get along to Crieff for a walkabout and blog in 2014 for you 🙂

    Sue, thanks for the date guide. Might guess like birds and flowers , we will probably been a couple of weeks behind you with pond life. Please do let me know when you see activity as a guide. Yes, I had heard that frogs return to the same pond as they hatched and always wondered if this was true. I also read somewhere that adding spawn from another pond isn’t always a good idea as disease/invasive plants could be passed so not sure what to do there. I could try to find out if any gardens in streets around me have ponds I guess which might be a compromise as frogs that might find my pond would probably have found their already and might travel between ponds already. Mm…

    Suzie, thank-you! Oh… catching up with blogs in a nice seasonal way sounds good too me too. I’m looking forward to getting a good look around your blog too 🙂

    VP, Thank-you, ha-ha… so I’ve not completely bored the ‘older’ bloggers yet then? Blogging, for sure, has changed the way my garden has evolved and it has all been exciting. Would my garden look as it does now had I not started this blog and followed other blogs – who knows? It’s been fun. Looking forward to our very first phone chat tonight… I could never imagined that 7yrs ago… absolutely not :-O

    Christina, thank-you for taking time to email, I’m sorry you have had difficulty leaving comments on my blog. There are some blogs I have that problem with too and it is quite disappointing. I should use email in cases like that too. I am thrilled to hear that both you and your MIL enjoy my blog. Here’s hoping that 2014 will bring some fun garden stories to share. I’m looking forward to it 😀

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